Required for all students, unless waived by passing an exemption examination. The format of the examination is a series of questions based on the content of the course. The course content is described in the syllabus for the course, which can be found on the link above. Students should not attempt the exemption examination unless they are thoroughly versed in the course content.

Marketing activity is the engine that creates value in a business. It provides the focus for interfacing with customers and the source of intelligence about customers, competitors and the general environment. Further, marketing focuses on the long-run relationship of a company to its customers as well as on short-run sales. Thus marketing is critical to the revenue and profit streams for a company. This course emphasizes the role of marketing in creating value for customers, which in turn creates value for owners, shareholders and employees.

Eva Ascarza is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Columbia Business School. She is a marketing modeler who uses tools from statistics and economics to answer relevant marketing questions. Her main research areas are customer analytics and customer retention in the context of subscription businesses. She specializes in understanding and predicting changes in customer behavior, such as customer retention, usage, and e-mail engagement. She...